Tour Mash: Justin Thomas and Bernhard Langer just won’t stop winning

If you’re sick of reading about Justin Thomas and Bernhard Langer and their expanding trophy shelves, we’ve got no good news for you. Both gentlemen won again during American football season, as did Sergio Garcia. With warm weather sweeping the USA northeast, golf is still on the minds of many. Here’s our weekly mash of everything tour.

PGA Tour: Justin Thomas narrative has a new chapter

The CJ Cup is a new event on the PGA Tour; the first world-class, individual event played in Korea for male golfers. The site, Nine Bridges on Jeju Island, had been proven a quality layout on the LPGA Tour. At the end of 72 holes, many PGA golfers gave it their all, but a familiar face held the winner’s plaque.

How Thomas won:

Justin Thomas visited the 60s only once all week, and that was on opening day. He went deep on Thursday, with 2 eagles and 7 birdies for a 63 (9-under-par). As the weather got dicey (winds the next three days), the low round of the day went 65-67-68 over the next 54 holes. In other words, Thomas didn’t need to go low.

Two Aussies gave Thomas their best shot. Cameron Smith opened with 69-68, reached 8-under with 6 holes to play, but could not summon one more birdie to reach the magic figure of 9-under. Marc Leishman survived 3 bogeys in 4 holes on Sunday’s outward nine to reach the 17th hole at 9 deep, bogeyed 17, then birdied 18 to tie Thomas. Their playoff lasted two holes, when Leishman got into trouble on the par-five 18th and made bogey, delivering victory to Thomas.

LPGA Tour: Ji Eun-hee finally claims third LPGA Tour victory

Ji Eun-hee won twice in her first three years on the LPGA Tour. Both were major victories, the 2008 Wegman’s LPGA and the 2009 U.S. Open. No one thought that it would be eight years before she would win again.

How Ji won:

She won going away, by a 6-stroke margin over Lydia Ko. Ji bookended her week with 66 and 65, the low rounds each day. Ji made 3 bogies all week long, and was bogey-free in rounds 1 and 4. Ji provided no opportunity for anyone to close in. It was her week, plain and simple.

How they didn’t:

Lydia Ko was unstoppable for the early part of her career. When one thinks of recent LPGA prodigies (Michelle Wie and Yani Tseng come to mind) Ko resembles the latter more than the former. After a four-win season in 2016, Ko is winless in 2017. Is it an aberration, growing pains, or something else? Ko played well enough to win this week, four strokes clear of the five-way tie for third. Her time is near.

ICMYI: Eun-Hee Ji wins the 2017 @SwingingSkirts – her first win in eight years.

European Tour: The host with the most, Garcia wins at home

Many think that Garcia’s win at Augusta was seminal, releasing him to play great golf under great pressure. His work at Valderrama did nothing but support that assertion. He had many opportunities to lose the tournament, but found the will to win it.

How the host won:

Garcia balanced birdies and bogeys all week, finding a way to stay in red figures from start to finish. On Sunday, he made a solitary bogey, and birdied the penultimate hole to counter his closest pursuer’s birdie and preserve his one-stroke margin. Despite all the distractions, Garcia preserved his focus through the final putt, accepting the accolades a host-champion deserves.

How Joost didn’t:

You can’t accuse him of not trying. Luiten made a double-eagle on Friday’s 11th hole, took a share of the lead on Sunday’s back nine, and pushed Garcia as far as possible, falling just short of a playoff. Luiten claimed the runner-up spot for a second consecutive year. Like Ko above, his time is near. His work was so good that we gave him the media feature below, despite not being the champion.

PGA Tour Champions : Sixth victory of season for Langer

Is it possible to quietly win six times in a professional golf season? Nah, just a thought. Bernhard Langer won three major titles on the senior circuit this summer, and closed out his latest triumph by one stroke in Virginia.

How he won, again:

How does a walk-off eagle sound? Langer made zero putts, by his own admission, until the final green. There, he drained an 18-feet putt for three and a narrow victory over Scott Verplank. On Friday, Langer knocked down 9 birdies for 63 and a 3-stroke edge over Vijay Singh, who signed for the same score. On Sunday, Singh struggled but Scott surged.

How Verplank didn’t:

Scott Verplank took advantage of Langer’s weak putting day. He posted 6 birdies on a clean card for 66 on Sunday, but failed to birdie the closing 18th, the easiest hole on the course, statistically. You can’t make them all, but to beat Langer, you have to. Billy Mayfair and Kenny Perry enjoyed surges of their own, with 65s, to jump into a tie for third spot with Singh.

Ronald Montesano writes for GolfWRX.com from western New York. He dabbles in coaching golf and teaching Spanish, in addition to scribbling columns on all aspects of golf, from apparel to architecture, from equipment to travel. Follow Ronald on Twitter at @buffalogolfer.

12 Comments

12 Comments

Peter

Oct 23, 2017 at 10:42 pm

Looks like Langer was using a Ping with Graphite Design Shaft. ALso M2 3 wood?

You may like

10 interesting photos from Monday at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

GolfWRX is live this week from the 2018 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club.

Like all WGC events, the best golfers in the world are in the field, so we’re capturing plenty of interesting shots of the biggest names in the game (and what they’re playing). From Monday’s preparations, we have two general galleries, a handful of WITB galleries, and a look at SuperStroke’s new wares.

Check out a curation of some of the most interesting shots from Monday in Austin.

Monday’s Photos from the 2018 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

GolfWRX is live this week from the 2018 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event at Austin Country Club (par 71: 7,108 yards), a 1984 Pete Dye design.

The match play field is stacked, including the world No. 1-ranked Dustin Johnson, the reigning FedExCup champion Justin Thomas, the reigning Masters champion Sergio Garcia, and the two-time match play champion Jason Day. In total, 59 of the top 64 golfers in the world are playing in the event; Brooks Koepka (wrist), Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott and Henrik Stenson will not be in the field.

Last year, D. Johnson won the match play event, which was his third straight victory — that was before the freak accident at the Masters that kept him sidelined, preventing him from going for four straight wins.

Wednesday’s Photos from the 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational

GolfWRX is live from Bay Hill Club & Lodge (par 72; 7,419 yards) in Orlando, Florida for the 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational. The tournament, in the namesake of the late Arnold Palmer, has been played at Bay Hill aka “Arnie’s Place” since 1979. Tiger Woods, who’s in the field this week, has won eight of those events — the last time Woods played in the event was in 2013, where he picked up his eighth victory at Bay Hill.